Front	Rear

Technical Details

I acquired my Ice Rock Duckling on eBay from Ice Rock in 2017.

The Ice Rock Duckling is forged from aluminum alloy and then soft anodized. Mine is 126 mm. tall, 105 mm. wide, and 11 mm. thick. The rope hole is 35 mm. high and 57 mm. wide. The top center thickness is 11 mm. The shaft length and width are 34 mm. and 24 mm., respectively. The eye measures 12 mm. by 12 mm. and has a black o-ring seated in an internal groove. The ears are 21 and 24.8 mm. long. My Ice Rock Duckling weighs 116 g.

One side is printed with the Ice Rock logo, "ICE ROCK," and "30 kN."

Comments

The Duckling is an unusual T–side eight that reminds me of the Kong Oka. Forgive me for saying this, but looking at these two makes me think that if you take a ladle of molten aluminum and pour some squiggles on the floor, you’ve designed a new descender. That is NOT what happened (as far as I know).

The unusual shape of the rope hole and the various horns allow for a variety of rigging configurations, and the horns also facilitate tying off. The rope hole is shorter than normal, so it may provide too much friction on stiff or muddy ropes.

I don't really like the lower spur - it does not appear to serve an essential purpose, but it does tend to poke me in the stomach.

The eye is small and there are many normal carabiners and maillons that will not fit through it. This is a fatal flaw, in my opinion. A tiny eye restricts versatility, and eliminates the option of using two carabiners for redundancy.

The eye has an annoying o-ring insert. In my mind, this is just a bad idea that won't go away.

• The o-ring keeps the Duckling from moving freely on the carabiner.
• It makes attaching and removing the Duckling more difficult.
• It catches in the notch in some of the carabiners that will fit.

Plan on dedicating a special carabiner if you want to use your Duckling.

Canyoneering descender designers and users may love o-ring eyes, but I hate them. O-ring eyes increase cost without providing a corresponding benefit. I see too many disadvantages to the small o-ring eye design and no advantages.

• Reducing the chance of dropping the device in one unlikely scenario by adding another item to drop doesn't count as an advantage, proper technique solves the dropping problem.
• I'm told that the tight o-ring guards against cross-loading and rollouts, but proper harness design and proper technique completely eliminate this concern.
• An o-ring eye may keep the orientation of the rappel device more stable when unloaded, which might help speed the process of coming off rope. The one place that I see this being relevant is if you're floating/treading in water over your head, but proper flotation is a much better and safer choice to address this concern.

You may disagree with me about o-ring eyes, I don't mind, but the undersize o-ring eye alone is sufficient for me to eliminate the Duckling from serious consideration.